Oral History Program Jennifer Turley Interviewed by Heidi Costello 30 January 2018 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Jennifer Turley Interviewed by Heidi Costello 30 January 2018 Copyright © 2023 by Weber State University, Stewart Library Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. 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These oral history assignments were created to help Weber State students learn the value and importance of recording public history and to benefit the expansion of the Weber State oral history collections. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management This work is the property of the Weber State University, Stewart Library Oral History Program. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Turley, Jennifer, an oral history by Heidi Costello, 30 January 2018, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, Special Collections and University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Jennifer Turley Circa 2018 Abstract: This is an oral history interview with Jennifer Turley. It is being conducted on January 30, 2018 at Weber State University and concerns Dr. Turley's experiences being a woman in a position of leadership. The interviewer is Heidi Costello. HC: Alright, this is an interview with Dr. Jennifer Turley, department chair of the Athletic Training and Nutrition Department at Weber State University and Professor of Nutrition. This interview is being conducted by Heidi Costello on January 30, 2018 at around 12:00 PM in Dr. Turley's office at Weber State University. In this interview, Dr. Turley will be talking about her experiences being a woman in a position of leadership. Thank you for letting us talk to you today. JT: Oh, thank you for the invitation, Heidi. HC: Could you please start by telling us about your background, just about your childhood and teen years, kind of where you grew up, family values, that sort of thing? JT: Sure, that sounds fun. I was actually born in Ogden, but shortly after my family moved to Alaska, so pretty much my childhood took place in Fairbanks, Alaska. The cold and dark part of Alaska. I was the third child of four kids, and I think had a unique childhood. My dad was a doctor, my mom was a nurse, and we grew up kind of in the wilderness. Forty acres of property out of [inaudible]. And definitely there was a lot of quietness, a lot of wilderness. Our family values. We certainly had a very tight family, very close, spent a lot of time together, but we're an active family so we spent time outdoors, fishing. And we're competitive swimmers, all of the kids, and we're musicians, so we all studied the piano and I play the saxophone. We also valued education, so having educated parents definitely had an impact on all the children, so we're all educated now. And I think just being in Alaska, you have to be 1 a strong person to get through cold and dark and, you know, that was back in the 70s and 80s as well, so limited technology and things like that. You just kind of rely on your studying and doing things together. Our core values; we believed in God and had faith and also just being an honest, hard-working individual with good moral and ethical values. HC: Thank you. Can you tell us a little more about your educational background? JT: Sure, after graduating with my high school diploma, I went straight to Arizona and pursued my Bachelor's degree in nutrition science. After graduating, I had to decide whether to go on to do an internship to become a registered dietitian or pursue further education. I was fortunate in that my father had prepared to send all of his children to college, and I decided that I wanted just to continue to become more educated. I really enjoy the academic endeavors and environment, so I went to the University of Texas and eventually secured a PhD in nutrition science. It was human ecology. And then after that, I decided to take on a post-doctoral research fellowship at the National Cancer Institute. So, I was there for four years, and eventually made my way to Weber State University where I have been happily ever after since. HC: What experiences, throughout your life, have lead you to believe that you were or could be a leader? JT: Well, I think back on just some of the situations that we found ourselves in, somewhat as a family. My dad co-owned a fishing boat. I guess it was more of a recreational boat, but we would go fishing every summer for every salmon run out in the Prince William Sound, and this boat was kind of a fixer upper. It was a 40-foot diesel engine boat, but for whatever reason every time we went out 2 something major would happen. And I think some of those circumstances, certainly being around your parents, and as a high school student, how they would problem solve. Like being in 5-foot swells out by a glacier, surrounded by icebergs, and have the steering column on the boat break. So, it definitely became the family project of how to rig up the steering column and survive. So, some of those types of things. I remember being voted in as like swim team captain and taking on a leadership role of just being encouraging and supporting the swim team members. Getting into more of a tight knit academic program, and problem solving. There was a time when I was working on my doctorate degree where all of the cells started dying in the lab, and the faculty members who were the principal investigators weren't hands-on in the lab and they were asking their lab techs what happened and nobody could figure it out. Finally, I just started asking the questions and eventually figured it out. And it tied back to that they started using water from a different reverse osmosis system. So, you know, things like that, they're little things, but I think with anyone, you just have to kind of dig deep into who you are and embrace those challenges. I always liked doing puzzles. My dad and mom would always put out puzzles in the cold and dark winter nights in Alaska, and limited TV, and a shared family hardwired phone. We would do those kinds of things and a lot of times when I come across an obstacle, I kind of look at it like solving a puzzle, and just taking one piece at a time, and not being frustrated with the whole picture. So, hopefully that answers your question. HC: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. You talked a little bit about your core values, but to 3 expand on that, how have they influenced your leadership experiences? JT: Well, I feel like, certainly to repeat some of those core values, I feel like I personally have adopted the core values that were instilled upon me as a child in growing up. So, I definitely have a strong belief in God, and I feel like that is a big factor of who I am now. I do believe in hard work. I had role models with my mother and father both being very hard working and dedicated. And honesty, integrity, you know, moral and ethical. Those are things that I do value very strongly, weave into my own life daily and talk to my children about. HC: Yeah. Alright, can you name a person who has had a tremendous impact on you as a leader? JT: I think this is a challenging question for me, and I guess I have two answers to it. One, is just looking at my father. I think he was probably my strongest role model as a professional. My mother ended up quitting her work as a nurse to raise four children while her husband was a very busy radiologist. He had his own radiology practice with another doctor, and they built that up from scratch. And I look at just his accomplishments, creating his own practice in a remote Fairbanks, Alaska and then expanding out. That was definitely probably one of my strongest role models. Certainly, I think of my PhD mentor and my swim coach. Those were strong role models, but when it comes to professional work ethic, I would say my father. But the other answer to me, I feel like… I was raised in a Christian home. You know, every individual has to find their own faith, as they come into adulthood and beyond. So, I feel like I had -- it was really more when I was in my doctoral program -- that I had like a spiritual awakening. You know, you feel 4 like, “Oh, I believe what I believe because that's what I was raised to believe,” but then I went through a transformation where I truly had my own spiritual experiences and really established my faith in God. And so, I really feel like that was the point where I became a stronger person, a stronger woman, and felt like God is my mentor. So, whenever I might be struggling with something, I take it to prayer. I take it to reading the Bible and trying to look at what all those answers come back to me for. So, certainly observing my earthly father, but also my Heavenly Father, and I feel like that's where I got my strength as a woman. I never felt like, discriminated, like I would be discriminated as a woman, because my father would always say, "You need to be educated. You're going to need to be able to take care of yourself, even if you end up getting married and have a husband that'll take care of you. You never know what can happen to your husband." So, he was always looking out for all of his daughters to make sure that they could stand on their own as well. HC: What do you see as the biggest challenges of being a woman or minority leader in Northern Utah, and then specifically to that, what have you done to overcome those challenges? JT: Okay. I know when I first came to Northern Utah… and this answer might come in a little bit later. Sometimes when you tell people, “I'm moving to Utah.” … At the time, I was in Maryland working on my Post-doc at the National Cancer Institute and there were individuals who were like, "What are you moving to Utah for?" And to me, I felt like this was a little piece of Alaska without the cold and dark and the extreme minus 50 degrees, and it just felt like home. Maybe it's because I was born here. I don't know, but I had so many people trying to 5 discourage me from moving to Utah, and this kind of even goes back to my doctoral mentor. You know, people trying to discourage me from going into that lab because of the reputation of a very difficult mentor and very difficult to work with. So, I started just establishing my own direction, my own feelings, and trying not to be swayed by the opinions of others. And so, I felt like I was supposed to come to Northern Utah. I knew that, what's the biggest obstacle, you know people would tell me either don't go there or once you get there, you're not going to be successful. My own father told me nutrition is a dead-end field, and told me that I would never get tenure at Weber State University. And so, I feel like, you know, it's nice when people have their two cents but you do have to listen to your own heart, and trust your own path. So, I do have a strong faith in God, but I am outside the cultural norm. So, to me that might have been the biggest obstacle, feeling like maybe I wouldn't fit into the culture, but I've been here now 21 years and I feel like none of what I was, or potentially tried to steer away from, has actually been a reality. I haven't experienced any of that and have been embraced and supported in Northern Utah, so stay true to your own dreams. Follow your own goals and paths whether it's a geographic region or not. HC: Wonderful. Thank you. JT: Thank you. HC: And our last question is, are there any insights that you can share about being a woman and/or minority leader in Northern Utah? JT: Well, I guess the main thing that I wanted to say is just to stay true to yourself, and don't compromise your vision and your direction based on the opinions of 6 others. Develop your own relationships, and always hear both sides, or all sides, of any controversy that you might walk into. Don't be quick to judge, and hear all the evidence, I suppose. One of the things, I guess, just parting words as we wrap up, is we're all going to go through challenges, and so, try to embrace the challenges, because what they really do is build character and help you become a future leader. And always be compassionate and connected to the people that you're in service with and maybe as a supervisor or leader over. So, you know, I look at my job as a service role, and caring for people, caring for their positions and their advancements, and every aspect of that. So, stay connected, stay true, and embrace the challenges. HC: All right. Thank you very much, Dr. Turley, for letting us talk to you today. JT: Thank you. 7